


Clean

by eluna



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Background Lucifer (Supernatural), Emotionally Hurt Sam Winchester, Emotionally Repressed Sam Winchester, Episode: s08e21 The Great Escapist, Hell Trauma, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Mental Instability, Non-Consensual Lucifer/Sam Winchester, POV Sam Winchester, Past Lucifer/Sam Winchester, Recovered Memories, Sam Winchester Has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Sam Winchester's Hell Trials, Season/Series 08, Unreliable Narrator, Unrequited Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-24
Updated: 2018-02-24
Packaged: 2019-03-23 04:58:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13780209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eluna/pseuds/eluna
Summary: Sam knows he’s a mess—he still loses track of his surroundings, for a few moments, every time he thinks of the way he was two years ago, when the wall is gone and he sees Lucifer every time his eyes start to wander, and god, the way Dean and Bobby look at Sam like he’s some kind of psycho or, worse, a child—but he still has his priorities, still can protect what most needs protecting here inside his mind.(Or: The Trials may be purifying Sam’s blood, but his mind is a whole other matter.)





	Clean

**Author's Note:**

> I'm trying to get back into writing fanfiction, and also I had a lot of conflicting feelings about the conversation between Sam and Rowena about seeing Lucifer's true face in Various & Sundry Villains. Then this happened. Take care of yourselves and read the tags on this one. <3

All Sam’s hair is stuck to his skin. Sweat-soaked clumps of it cling to his forehead, ears, neck—what feels like his entire body—and Sam abruptly recalls kicking his legs where they’re swung over the edge of a yellowing bathtub, snips of hair tracking itchy tracks down the back of his shirt and into the waistband of his racecar pajama bottoms, and Dean’s high-pitched voice carrying on about why can’t Sam hold still and what a girl he is for letting it grow so long, even as Dean’s scissor-free weak hand streams carefully through Sam’s scalp—

—it’s good, this memory, it’s one of the good ones, and Sam doesn’t mind that it’s sucking him into itself and away from himself, here, in the Impala. Even the fever feels good, comparatively.

“Compared to what?”

Dean’s voice sounds harsh and angry, and oh—Sam didn’t realize he was saying any of that out loud, not that he’s going to admit that to his brother. He tries to pay closer attention, clamp down on the stream of commentary in his mind. Sam knows how to bury his secrets—at least the _really_ bad ones, the truths that stay untrue as long as he consistently keeps them quiet—but it’s getting harder, with the burden of the Trials.

Not a burden. A blessing, if anything. They’re purifying his blood, he can feel it, and Sam needs that because Sam is unclean.

“Compared to—earlier today,” he says, straining. “I’d rather feel hot and gross like this than start passing out unconscious again.”

He pushes strands out of his stinging eyes, tips his forehead against the glass of the passenger-side window. What he _really_ means is, hot is better than cold. It was cold, downstairs, with Lucifer—his skin just chilly, at first, that barest bit of relief against Sam’s own after Lucifer sews it back together from the flames, until Sam realizes there’s too _much_ skin, touching Sam in places he doesn’t _want_ it to touch, and by the time he knows what’s happening, he’s crushed beneath the Devil in a pocket of the coldest ice Sam knows, and he can see Lucifer’s face, his _real_ one, and feel Satan _inside_ of Sam where he shouldn’t be—shouldn’t be—Michael is watching from one corner with his arms folded disdainfully and one eyebrow arched, and he’s teasing at taking a go of his own, next, but Sam is—Sam is—on Earth, in the Impala, with the brother he loves so much, and it is beautifully, blessedly hot here, and none of the rest has to matter anymore in a world where Lucifer is _locked away_.

Sam realizes that Dean’s talking to him, again, and he’s missed all of it, again, but at least this time Sam knows he didn’t start babbling. He was diligent, this time. Sam knows he’s a mess—he still loses track of his surroundings, for a few moments, every time he thinks of the way he was two years ago, when the wall is gone and he sees Lucifer every time his eyes start to wander, and god, the way Dean and Bobby _look_ at Sam like he’s some kind of psycho or, worse, a child—but he still has his priorities, still can protect what most needs protecting here inside his mind.

“Huh? I’m sorry. I—got caught up in a memory.”

“Oh, yeah, of what?” Dean scowls.

“You’re cutting my hair in the bathtub. I’m wearing these yellow pajamas with these little red racecars all over them—and swinging my legs back and forth, and you’re getting more and more pissed at me for it.”

Dean glances over at Sam, then back to the road. Everything Sam can see through the windshield looks dark and cold, and he doesn’t like it, so he looks at Dean’s face instead—the clean line of his jaw, the tight lines around the eyes. “I _was_ pissed at you,” Dean says finally, and his voice sounds thin, somehow. “I _was_ cutting your hair.”

“Uh, yeah, dude, that’s what I just said,” Sam says with an anxious little laugh.

“No, you said it like it was… you know what, never mind. I can’t wait till these damn Trials are over with, that’s all.”

Dean stops talking, so Sam tries to focus on the haircut, on being six years old again in racecar pajamas without any idea about Hell or Lucifer or the demon blood already surging through his young body. He lied to Dean, before: as a child, Sam hadn’t thought he was dirty because he’d known, on some subconscious level, what Azazel had dripped and sealed and given root inside of him the night his mother died. Sam had known he was dirty because good boys from good families could afford to go get proper haircuts, good boys’ fathers _tell_ them why they move around all the time, good boys don’t have to lie to their teachers, know how to make friends, _want_ to make more friends than just Sam’s mean older brother who will never, ever forgive Sam if he finds out what Sam thinks about him when no one is watching—

Sam doesn’t think anything about Dean. Lucifer never touched Sam skin-to-skin. The only reason Sam’s spinning these wild fantasies is because the Trials made him remember what the Devil’s face looks like—but none of it will matter once the Trials are complete and Sam is finally, finally clean.


End file.
